This is what I have been hearing about for weeks! Julia's class has been learning how to make the world a more beautiful place.
They have painted, drawn, colored and even planted flowers of every sort (even ones i did not know existed!). I had the privilege of going to Julia's open house at school with her this past week. It was wonderful to see the confidence and passion behind everything she had made in her classroom. She has an amazing memory about Van Gogh, Picasso, what all the flowers were named, the steps in growing a plant, the observations of growing her lily pad, explaining her lily pad journal, and showing us the special flower she had planted and was caring for.
In many ways this is how we approach Julia. For a simple explanation we got Julia as a seed. If you don't have solid roots your stem will not be able to hold itself or its flower. We have now, just in the past few months, gotten some roots going for Julia. Most 4 year olds have their strong stem by now. We are not quite there yet, but the roots are so very important. They are unseen by those just looking for the flower. Yet without the roots the flower once bloomed would topple over under the pressures of it's environmental elements. Julia's roots are fragile right now, they are not ready to be tested by life elements, and so she still requires the strong support of those around her, more so than most children of her age. In the same way however Julia has begun see the value of roots and the patience it takes to know the steps it takes to make a flower. So to we have begun to see the value of her roots beginning to take hold of the bedrock that will make her stand strong in life.
Today we planted Julia's flowers in our planter outside our door, so everyone who comes to our door knows we are starting to grow, we are fragile but with care and nurturing we plan to become something amazing :)
